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Ardiles and Villa: Footballing émigrés | @RichEvansWriter

Military events in the South Atlantic – even at a distance of 8000 miles – had a profound impact on a celebrated pair of international footballers in the 1980s. @RichEvansWriter takes up the story: Ossie Ardiles & Ricardo Villa at Tottenham Hotspur When one thinks of footballers and war, images of khaki-clad figures of yesteryear tend to spring to mind – the kind of ‘moustached archaic faces’ that Philip Larkin details in his poem MCMXIV. However, footballers do not have to be participants to be affected by conflict. Indeed, as with any civilians, they may well be unwitting victims with no stake in political events beyond their control. In certain instances, football risks turning into an extension of the battleground – where players, subject to barbarous words and threats, become targets of abuse. Such was the case in 1982 with Ricardo Villa and Ossie Ardiles – then both of Tottenham Hotspur – whose fates (at least in the short term) were determined by events unfolding on the o

The Crest Dissected - AS Roma

It’s been a good while since I’ve done a Crest Dissected but after a bit of a summer break and time at the BBC ( Cardiff and Swansea pieces) it’s time to get back down to TFHB writing! So following FC Barcelona , PSG , AS Monaco and US Women’s Soccer this week I’m going to take a look at AS Roma and their intriguing history. In the summer of 1927 an Italian Fascist, Italo Foschi , was behind the merger of three older Italian Football Championships clubs all based in Rome, Alba-Audace , Roman and Fortitudo . The purpose of the move was to compete with the well established clubs, especially in the Northern cities but Lazio were not behind the move meaning the Derby della Capitale rivalry was there from the beginning and Associazone Sportiva Roma was born. AS Roma immediately endeared themselves to the masses by taking on the capital’s colours, red and yellow, something Lazio did not consider as they favoured the greek myth of Olimpia and the colour blue. Romulus an

Football By Decade: 1960s

Following the immense changes to football in the 1950s, the subsequent decade was sure to reap the benefits of alterations to style, tactics and appreciation. The 1960s is when the game went truly global, of course towards the latter half of the previous ten years the European Cup had been introduced by UEFA, only to be completely dominated by Real Madrid, winning the tournament 5 times in a row. However, as we will see the 1960s brought a wider change in world culture and a social revolution effecting even football, a sport which often sees itself as exempt from global issues. Firstly we are to look at British football. English sport at least had been dramatically and even brutally forced to rethink its entire ethos after the 1950s which had highlighted a long-term outdated nature to tactics and methods of play. We at the Football History Boys have not been short on explaining this - the 6-3 drubbing by Hungary in 1953 and embarrassing early World Cup exits in 1950 and 1958

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